good morning. i'm chris jansing. the white house and members of congress are locked in a dangerous game, trying to negotiate a deal to avert the fiscal cliff and using public pressure to try and sway the outcome. exhibit a, the president rallied the crowd on monday in michigan to make the point he's looking to drive home. taxes have to go up on the rich. >> so when you put it all together what you need is a packet that keeps taxes where they are for middle class families. we make some tough spending cuts on things that we don't need,

and then we ask the wealthiest americans to pay a slightly higher tax rate. >> but here's exhibit b. republicans still have the majority in the house. and many conservatives say they have their own mandate in their districts to cut spending and stop the president from raising taxes. and that brings us to exhibit c republicans are determined to play the long game to win. >> the game you're playing is small ball. you're talking about raising rates on the top 2% that have run the government for 11 days. you just got re-elected. how about doing something big that's not liberal, how about doing something big that really is about partisan. every big idea he has is a liberal idea that drowns us in debt. how about manning up here, mr. president, and use your mandate to bring this country together to stop us from becoming greece. >> i want to bring in national political reporter for the ap and matt welch, editor and chief of "reason" magazine. good morning. >> good morning. >> so last night apparently team obama called boehner and asked for more details on taxes.

boehner's office said they're waiting for more details on spenting cuts. liz, why does it matter who gives what details first? what's the game here? >> well, i think what you're saying is whoever gives the details first, the other side is going to have an advantage to either position against those details. you know, the white house during health care debate, for example, was very -- it was, you know, step back and didn't give many details as to what they wanted to do because at the beginning because they didn't want to target on their back. i think this is almost a game of chicken right now. the problem is it's a game of chicken with very, very high stakes. and you've got the white house out there, you know, publicly putting pressure on republicans by sending obama, for example, to michigan but gamt trying to negotiate behind the scenes with boehner. and it's a two-prong strategy that i think carries real risk. >> it's kind of negotiation 101. i mean, the most basic kind of negotiation, you know, don't show your hand if you don't have to. i'm wondering, matt, is part of this psychological, even real in terms of momentum, democrats

feel they have the upper hand and so they don't need to do anything right now. >> can we just take a moment and recognize it's december 10th, december 11th and people are out on the road making politics about this and occasionally meeting and talking about maybe exchanging ideas? this is kind of a big deal, you know? in this same way that passing a buck -- we were told that for a long time. >> for a long time. if there was any kind of seriousness of purpose, and i'm not pointing out either party, you know, one over the other but neither is having a seriousness of purpose about passing budget, about sitting down and talking about this particular question, or about the long term which is going to hit us like a bag of dead rats on our head when the entitlements come due in the baby boomer generation retires. we're not even having a serious conversation. >> let's talk about the long game versus the short game. lindsey graham accused the president of playing small ball. >> in february or march you have to raids the debt ceiling.

i can tell you this, there's a hardening on the republican side. we're not going to raise the debt ceiling. we're not going to let obama borrow any more money or any america congress borrow any more money before we fix this country from becoming grease. >> a hardening on the republican side being the key phrase there, liz, maybe having it backfire when he needs republicans down the road. let's say when it comes to the debt ceiling? >> i would actually ask the question a little differently. i would say are both sides in danger of trying to push too much and then us not reaching an agreement. i think what you're hearing from the american public right now is there is a lot of fear and frustration that's really coorsing through the electorate as they're watching what seems to be both sides of, you know, playing a very risky game with their own -- their tax dollars, their livelihoods, their economy. and so i think -- i think pushing -- each side pushing too much carrys risk for both. >> let's talk about what the democrats are doing. the white house obviously has been taking this to the people. the president in michigan

yesterday just as i latest stop. the dccc has another. they've been accusing members of holding middle class tax cuts hostage. a website gophostagetakers.com, you think this is funny? but i'm wondering if it goes to your point or if this can be effective. >> it can be effective and that's kind of part of the problem of where we are right now. no one is talking about actually balancing a budget or doing anything that might lead to a semi balanced budget some day. no matter what happens, whatever lousy deal that they can sign on january 2nd or december 31st, that's how it's going to go down, i think everyone acknowledges that. whatever that deal is is not actually going to meaningfully reduce our debt loads or the deficit. it will probably be enough to put the economy back in a recession because we're going to be taking more money out of american's pockets. but that gap is huge in this country. we have stopped being teathered

to reality. we do not pay the full cost of government yet we have no sense of either side of the aisle. if we have $1.8 trillion spent by the federal government in 2000, maybe $3.8 trillion which we spend right now is a little bit too high of a number. as long as we have that enormous gap there's going to be this incredible pressure by the democrats. i can't believe that republicans aren't going to give thises class of people a free lunch and republicans going to say the same thing about democrats, meanwhile, those two levels are going to get nowhere near each other and we're going to continue all of this pathology that's really hurting the economy and hurting the long-term fiscal outlook of the kou country. >> let me bring in deborah wasserman schultz. always good to see you. >> you, too. thank you. >> does matt have a point? is there too much politicking going on? when you have a website gophostagetakers.com and you have cross roads, for example, from both sides, too much politics and not enough serious

negotiation here? >> well, look, i mean, the problem here is that we have already seen this movie and we know the ending. last summer when the republican -- i can't believe that the republicans are actually talking about playing chicken with our economic future here. i mean, last summer when the republicans forced us to play chicken on the debt ceiling in exchange for more than a trillion dallas, which democrats agreed to, in spending cuts, the result of the uncertainty was a downgrade in the united states credit rating. and i cannot believe that they would want to risk that again. the bottom line, and i explain this to my kids the other day who was asking me to explain, mom, what does the debt ceiling mean, what is a fiscal cliff. the bottom line it's just like the, you know, you have a big credit card bill in your family and not raising the debt ceiling is just like deciding, eh, it's too big, i'm not going to pay it.

that makes no sense. it's risky. what risks us slowing or stalling what is a fragile recovery, even though, you know, friday we learn that we're 147,000 private sector jobs created, is that we can't have this uncertainty. we need to give certainty to the middle class, extend their tax cuts right now. 98% of americans will have their taxes go up. 97% of small businesses, if we don't agree to that. bottom line is the last time we had one of the longest sustaining periods of prosperity is when president clinton was in office and those tax rates were at 39%. that is what we need to do a balanced approach. >> what republicans say to that argument is that they have a mandate from their constituents. more than half of the republicans in congress won with more than 60% of the vote, more than president obama, and almost all of them ran i'm holding the line on taxes. a case that they would have to make to their constituents about why they're doubling back.

>> we are all representatives of our individual districts and we are representative of the country. i can tell you, chris, last summer i voted for more than a trillion dollars in spending cuts that i know most of my counties opposed because i know it can't be my way or the highway. but i went home after i did that so that we would make sure that we avoided jeopardizing the full, faith, and credit of the united states and i explained to my constituents that we needed to make a compromise and we needed to strike a balance. that is incumbent upon each of us as each representatives and that's why we're sent to washington because we gather the information together and we make an informed decision. right now what's happening is that you have a handful of tea party extremists that potentially are going to hold the full, faith, and credit of the united states and the potential for us to go over the fiscal cliff hostage. and that's really unacceptable. president obama has put spending cuts on the table. he's put an increase in the tax rates for the wealthiest americans on the table. we've put making sure that we

have p get a tremendous amount of savings out of the entitlement programs. what have the republicans put on the table? virtually nothing. it is time to be rational and compromise. >> to that point, what haley barber said this morning about the possibility of compromise. he was on "morning joe" today. >> as a republican, i would take raising the rates on the two top brackets if, in return, we had tax reform laid out over a period of months, if we had entitlement reform. i would hold my nose despite the facts that raising those two tax is bad economics, bad for jobs, going to hurt the economy. i would hold my nose to get the other done. what i wouldn't do is vote for that and do nothing else. >> does he have a point? are democrats really prepared to deal with entitlement reform to maybe substantive cuts, the kinds the republicans are calling for?

>> chris, hail by barbour mentioned tax reform. that's what he would exchange in increase on the tax rates. that is on the table. president obama has repeatedly said as have congressional democrats, we need to deal with tax reform. look at the things that democrats have said need to be a part of this deal and agree should be paurt of this deal. significant spending cuts. making sure that we're not jeopardizing our future by, you know, putting in dramatic cuts to education and health care and innovation. we've got to have balanced spending cuts. we have to make sure we bring savings out of entitlement programs like we did with the affordable care act. $716 billion in savinging out of medicare and added eight years of insolvency when we passed the affordable care act. president obama put $360 billion on n. savings on the table in his proposal to the republicans. so we've got it all on the table. the republicans have given us a letter with a, you know, sort of vague outline of five things that they want to consider. tax reform is important. that we have to do over the long

term next year. hopefully we can try to get some agreement quickly. but the bottom line is that democrats have put a whole bunch of things that we're willing to agree to on the table and the republicans need to show their cards and stop playing chicken with our economy. >> congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz, thank you. and -- >> thank you. >> matt and liz, she makes the point about republicans and whether the conservative wing of the party is in some ways holding hostage. there have been a few reporters about the responsibility of a challenge to speaker boehner. now tom price through a spokesman has said that he's not going to make that challenge. but that person also told robert costa from "the national review" that my concern is that in our conference conservatives who are a majority don't have a proper platform. matt, is this just a threat from republicans trying to get some leverage to go against john boehner? are there people who are really angry enough or convinced enough that they can't vote for this? >> i think what it reflects is populous pressure coming from

the tea party movement. tea party movement is widely, i think, misunderstood by democrats as anti-tax or some other reason of the movement. it's an anti-government spending and government over-reach move m, which is very different from grover nor cyst project of holding the line on taxes. john boehner is a guy in 2010 who was asked what part of government would you cut, he's like, i don't know. he didn't have an answer. republicans have stopped having that answer traditionally. the tea party movement rose up to challenge that finally and put pressure on that. it's a real pressure, but they don't have leadership in the house right now that reflects that. they didn't get leadership that reflected that in the presidential race. that wasn't where mitt romney was coming from. there was a dissatisfaction there but they don't have a leader yet. i think what we will see is whatever not satisfying deal is done and negotiated by boehner, which will involve raising taxes on the top two brackets, for sure, right? when that is done, there's going to be a lot of people who are

upset, the economy probably is not going to be very good. and then i think you'll see a legitimate threat to boehner's leadership but not before. >> real quickly, let me ask you, liz. in the short term, though, i don't think anybody believes that john boehner is not going to be re-elected as speaker of the house. >> right. >> but in the interim could this cause problems for him, distractions for him in these negotiations? >> actually, you know, i agree with matt. the problem here is that the conservatives don't have a leader who is stepping up. in fact, what boehner has done this time -- i don't think it's going to cause him any short-term problems because he learned from the last go around where he tried to strike the bargain. it didn't work. now what you've seen is he's got eric cantor at the table with him and paul ryan at the table with him. if there is a leader in that tea party movement, you know, it is paul ryan. paul ryan is at the table and he's serving as a liaison to that conservative wing in the party in the house. i think actually boehner, what we're going to see has learned

from the past in his leadership troubles in the past and he has put together a leadership team on this very issue where he has kind of his, you know, hands in every part of the caucus right now. >> liz, matt welch, great to have both of you here. thank you. meantime, crowds have been pouring into michigan's capital this morning to protest that controversial right to work legislation we talked about yesterday. at least 10,000 people are expected. this could turn out to be the largest demonstration in michigan state capital history. the state house takes up two bills that would make it illegal to force workers to join a union or pay fees similar to union dues. the outcome is considered a foregone conclusion. governor rick schneider says he will sign the bills. in michigan yesterday, though, president obama said what they're really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money. for those with visions of doing this...

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in between all the conjecture over what secretary of state hillary clinton will or are not do when she leaves office, one fact is not dispited, achievements in promoting human rights, especially women's rights around the world. with her departure emt nent who will fill that void in i'm joined now by carrie kennedy, founder of the robert f. kennedy senator, daughter of the late robert kennedy. good to see you. thanks for coming in. >> thanks. >> hillary clinton has championed women's rights. she has been in many ways a very tireless fighter for this. and i'm wondering, how much impact do you see as someone who does this day in and day out that she has had? >> oh, she's been incredible. you know, she was the first person to say in beijing that women's rights are human rights. and before that, that seemed so normal now but that was a revolutionary thing to say. before that, women's rights really wasn't on the international agenda.

and now it is. at the forefront. since then 183 countries have passed the women's rights convention. since she became secretary of state there are now 40% of the parliamentarians in afghanistan are women. >> let me ask you about afghanistan because i haven't been there and i think it's been at least two years now but when i was there and was talking to a lot of women, one of the things that they worried most about, as you well know, is the u.s. leaving. they have made progress. they're concerned about the taliban. they're concerned about education for girls. when you meet a young girl whose parents were illiterate and were never allowed to go to school under the taliban and now say i want to be president of my country, it's a finn phenomenal thing but how concerned are you about what might happen? >> i think we are very, very, very concerned. i think there's great legislation. i was just offered by senator

hutchison from texas saying that we have to take account of the impact on women as we're pulling out of different areas of afghanistan, and i think that will make a big difference. but, you know, these are structural changes that have taken place, especially with hillary clinton's leadership. and now 40% of women are graduating from grade school in afghanistan. so that makes a huge difference. and it's going to be hard for them to turn back on that. >> with all the progress that has been made and it has been significant over the last several years, a third of women worldwide face violence because of their gender. more than six in ten of the world's hungry are women. how do we prevent -- when you look at globally, how do you keep going forward and not taking steps back? >> well, you know, both on women's rights and on human rights across the board, if you want to create change and you can only do one thing, the most important thing to do is empower

women. so educating girls, making sure they are in power both in the corporate world and the political world is very, very important. today the hundred biggest economies on work, 50% of them are corporations. we need to make sure that women are powerful in those corporations, on the board, in executive positions. >> if you want to talk about power phil women, we have seen what a difference hillary clinton has been able to make, so as the center. you have another auction coming up. i think among the things you are auctioning off are visits here with thomas roberts, i think with reverend al. >> and morning joe. >> morning joe, as well. >> we come back to you but you just did your -- >> your mother wrote me a lovely note. tell people quickly about it. >> this is the -- you can go to

wwwrfkcenter.org. you can bid on, for instance, my favorite is going sailing with my mother ethel kennedy and my cousin ted kennedy in next summer. falconing with my brother bobby or go fly fishing with paul volcker. and there is lots of set visits and going to see anderson cooper on one side or bill o'reilly on another. and lots of access to hollywood, to broadway. it's a really fun auction. >> for a great cause. i also just want to give a plug because i enjoyed it so much. your sister has done a documentary, people can see it on hbo, about your mom. so if people want to get an idea of where the center came from, sort of how it all developed, although that's not the focus of it, your mom is the focus of it, i think that's one place to go. i know you're proud of her. >> which has been short listed for an oscar. so all of you -- all of you

voters out there in the documentary category, vote for rory. vote for ethel. >> spoken like a good sister. thank you, carrie kennedy, for coming on. logon to rfkcenter.org. a stomach virus keeping secretary clinton from her planned trip to morocco in the middle east today. she was to join foreign ministers from all over the world to talk about the crisis in syria and the future of the syrian rebels. a spokesman says deputy secretary bill burns will have to go in her place.

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they say there are multiple options for a referendum. the voters have to have their say on this issue and all options are on the table. this fight is far from over, according to a labor source. other politics now where south carolina's governor nicky haley is thinking about who to replace jim demint. tim scott seems like the leading conte contender. haley will tour a jet plant in his district today although scott says he has not spoken to the governor. the voters may have a different idea. the latest ppp poll shows the majority of south carolinians surveyed think, yes, steven colbert will do the best job filling senator demint's seat. colbert got 20% of the vote in the poll. this morning he tweeted, at nikki haley, about how i'd make an ideal senator. for one, i have no idea how many houses i own. another prks pp poll shows that 44% think that jolly old st. nick is a democrat.

just 28% believe santa claus is a republican. and if you read only one thing this morning part of the fiscal cliff challenge for medicare is the simple math that people are living longer. so what are your chances of living to be 100 or older? it's my must read. up on our facebook page at facebook/jansingco.ew sou ps that will make it drop over, and over again. ♪ from jammin' jerk chicken, to creamy gouda bisque. see what's new from campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do. see what's new from campbell's. [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. and that their homeowners insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesn't. stop pretending. only flood insurance covers floods. ♪ visit floodsmart.gov/pretend to learn your risk.

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♪ with a remarkable new interior featuring the available chevrolet mylink infotainment system. this is where sophisticated styling begins. and where it ends? that's up to you. it's here -- the greatest malibu ever. ♪ house speaker john boehner is feeling the pressure to give members in his party cover for a tax hike as part of the fiscal cliff deal. look at the numbers from the "new york times" to see why. there are 234 house republican there's this 113th congress. 85% of them won re-election easily with at least 55% of the vote. and almost all were re-elect we'd the promise not to raise taxes. so what is their obligation to their voters and can john boehner make a switch palatable? i'm joined now by former ohio governor ted strickland and

former campaign manager for mike huckabee chip satsman. good morning. >> good morning. >> what do the lawmakers owe their constituents on the promise not to raise tax she's. >> i think they owe the country. good governance. and obviously every member of congress has an obligation to their particular district and their particular constituents, but they also have a larger obligation, i believe, to the well-being of the country as a total. and so we are in a situation where some difficult decisions have to be made, but i believe the well being of the country must take precedent over every other consideration. >> of course, chip, a lot of those constituents don't think that a tax hike on the wealthy is for the good of the country and even though national polling shows that overall people favor raising taxes on the rich, you talk to congressman like ted poe in texas or scott in new jersey fnlg, they don't see it.

if boehner wants a lawmaker to flip, how does it do it? >> it's going to be a tough sell. i was at a town hall last night where 12,000 constituents of this certain congressman participated. they asked the question, do you think we should do taxes, additional taxes, spending cuts, or a combination of both. 8% wanted tax increases. 50% wanted spending cuts and 30% wanted a combination of both. there's a lot of people trying to make up their mind. the speaker has a tough job. and if the president can bring 80% or 90% of the democrats to this he still needs 30 or 40 or 50 house republicans. he's going to have to go to each individual one and talk about the pros and cons of this. this is not an easy sell for speaker boehner. >> what possible prize could be big enough for the president to concede and for john baner to take back to republicans so that they would say, okay, now i can sell this tax hike or at least it will give me some cover? >> i feel some sympathy for the speaker because i know he's in a

very difficult set of circumstances but we had an election. the polling that i've seen indicates that at least 60% or more of the american people believe that taxes should be increased on the upper 2% while protecting the bottom 98% from tax increases. and so the people are on the side of the speaker and of the president and i think the president and the speaker are talking, that's really good, but ultimately the speaker's got to decide what is more important to him, resolving this issue, moving the country forward, or, quite frankly, giving in to members of his caucus that under no circumstances believe that a tax increase would ever be permissible to them. >> so, chip, give us a sense of what it might be like behind the scenes in he's delegate negotiations. how do these deals get made? >> there's a couple of different levels of the meetings. there's the meetings where you have everybody there and the

staff and everybody is posturing and you start the deals with they're very far apart and i say they draw these lines in a sand for a reason so they the cover them up later and move them. then you get the later conversations where it just will be the speaker and the president perhaps. you always hear the stories of how lbj will drive down to the capital and have a drink with senator when he was president. i think that personal relationship absolutely matters. i think that's where the real deal gets made and i think that's where the speaker is going to be to sell that if he can to his caucus, the personal phone calls. the president hasn't done a lot of that now. if he wants a deal done he needs to get engaged on that side of it. >> he's not known for doing that, governor. is that something that's going to have to happen? >> i think it's starting to happen. i think it will happen. it must, quite frankly happen. now we're talking about using the fiscal cliff or the debt ceiling as the ultimate weapon, trying to get something from the president now or give something

to the president now with a threat that the debt ceiling will be used as the weapon in a few weeks or months. and quite frankly, that's no way to run a country. we need to move beyond this stalemate and this gridlock and both parties need to come together. i think the president's trying his best and, quite frankly, i would say that speaker boehner is really trying here. but these are difficult circumstances and i believe -- i return to what i said earlier. we had an election. the president won. when it comes to these tax matters, the people of this country are supportive of the president's approach. >> i'm curious, chip, and you were on this teleconference and obviously those are people very involved and very interested but there's an awful lot of fatigue, election fatigue in this country and, frankly, the holidays -- holiday season is upon us, people are busy, kids are back in school, so son and so forth. how much is public pressure going to play into all of this? >> for the next couple of weeks

santa claus dominates public pressure. >> he's a democrat, apparently. i don't know if you saw that poll. >> i'm not sure that i believe that but we can discuss that. obviously people are worried about more than school plays and christmas plays and what they're getting and giving. there's not going to be a public outcry for the next week or two because christmas is going to supersede that. we know they are going to take this to the bottom deadline and try to get a deal in the last minute. you will see the members of congress coming home the day before christmas, maybe christmas eve will be when they get this thing passed. i think it will ultimately be a band-aid and take us to where the governor was going to talk about, take us to february where the debt ceiling happens and that's where they're going to try to get their deal done because i think to get republicans you're going to need to do spending cuts first before you talk about any increased revenue. >> we will speak again, chip, governor ted strickland. thank you, guys. appreciate it. also making news this morning, rare december tornadoes hitting parts of the south. check out this video from florida.

unbelievably huge funnel cloud caught on tape in edge water. at least 40 homes there were damaged. a tornado also tore through birmingham, alabama, yesterday morning, but no reports of injuries there. defense secretary leon panetta made his first official visit to kuwait today. meeting with kuwaiti officials and visiting 13, 500 u.s. troops serve ing there. during this trip panetta mentioned the threat of syria using chemical weapons against their own people seeming to have diminished. we're learning more about why nelson mandela is in the hospital. he is suffering from a recurring lung infection but is responding to treatment. mandela, 4 years old, has been in the hospital since saturday. the australian radio station that aired a prank on the london nurse says it will make a major donation to her family. the station says it will give all of its advertising revenue for the rest of the year to a fund for the lady found dead just days after taking the call. she was tricked into thinking

she was speaking to the queen who wanted information on kate, duchess of cambridge. the second wib winner of the whopping powerball jackpot has been identified. he's 37 years old, matthew good lives in a phoenix suburb. sorry, ladies, he's married. the associated press says good took the one-time payout, $192 million last week. he apparently told lottery officials he was afraid to claim it next year because of the fiscal cliff and there might be higher taxes. hsbc is about to pay up the biggest penalty ever imposed on the banks. mandy drury is here. mandy, the british banking giant going to pay a whopping $1.9 billion. what, they're making this money laundering probe go away? >> it's very interesting decision, actual ily, what came out of this, chris, because given the extent of evidence against hhbc, they are see ing there is the better of two evils. maybe you can call it a healthy

compromise between a settlement and also a much harsher money laundering indictment. obviously this might hurt the bank's reputation but hopefully not a whole lot more than that because at the end of the day a harsher indictment would have sparked concerns that criminal charges could jeopardize what is one of the world's largest banks and therefore destabilize the global financial system. i guess you could call this maybe a case of has it become too big to indict. instead it just got the record $1.92 billion settlement. >> a big star is making a deal apparently with pepsi. so i think pretty soon when you go to drink your can of pepsi you will actually be kissing the forehead of beyonce. >> yeah. beyonce and pepsi have become global partners. it's a multi-year deal. >> does that look like her? >> it doesn't really look like her. >> she's much prettier. >> i wouldn't have pegged it as her. >> it looks like a avatar beyonce. >> it does. we already know we're going to see beyonce at the pepsi

halftime show on february 3rd, the super bowl. but now pepsi is just taking her beyond. i guess giving her lots of multiple outlets to tap into her so-called createivity as they put it. the two brands are going to create online content as well. you've got these cans with beyonce on them. you have a new live tv commercial. lots and lots of things. apparently the deal that beyonce/pepsi partnership is estimated to be about $50 million. not bad. >> 5-0, 23not 1-5. >> $50 million. >> cnbc's mandy durry, always good to see youncht if you missed out on black friday, cyber monday, and green monday as yesterday was called, its becoming a december trend. december 14th is stamp and ship day. coupons.com says that's the deadline to mail your packages if you want them to get there on time without a big price tag.

or wait until december 17th because free shipping day comes with guaranteed christmas eve delivery. freeshipping.org has 1,000 retailers signed up for that. december 22nd is super saturday for the procrastinators. and december 26th, gift card exchange day. several websites offer this service so you can either sell or trade gift cards that you won't use. [ emily jo ] darrell comes into starbucks almost every weekend. darrell hasn't been able to visit his mom back east in a long time. [ mom ] things are sometimes a little tight. i wasn't able to go to the wedding. [ emily jo ] since darrell couldn't get home, we decided to bring home to him and then just gave him a little bit of help finding his way. ♪ [ laughs ] [ applause ] i love you. i love you. [ male announcer ] get together at the rekindle share event. buy one holiday drink, get one free this thursday through sunday. i've been fortunate to win on golf's biggest stages.

but when joint pain and stiffness from psoriatic arthritis hit, even the smallest things became difficult. i finally understood what serious joint pain is like. i talked to my rheumatologist and he prescribed enbrel. enbrel can help relieve pain, stiffness, and stop joint damage. because enbrel, etanercept, suppresses your immune system, it may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, and nervous system and blood disorders have occurred. before starting enbrel, your doctor should test you for tuberculosis and discuss whether you've been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. don't start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. tell your doctor if you're prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if, while on enbrel, you experience persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. [ phil ] get back to the things that matter most. ask your rheumatologist if enbrel is right for you. [ doctor ] enbrel, the number one biolog medicine prescribed by rheumatologists.

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but when i was in an accident... i was worried the health care system spoke a language all its own with unitedhealthcare, i got help that fit my life. information on my phone. connection to doctors who get where i'm from. and tools to estimate what my care may cost. so i never missed a beat. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for more than 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. the results are worrisome. tests given in 34 countries showed 15-year-olds in the u.s. rank 25th in math, 17th in science, 14th in reading. behind kids from places like singapore, finland, japan, and south korea just to name a few. the study follows the much talked about "new york times" column by nicholas chrisoff who visited the appalachian hills of

kentucky and found run disturbing reasons why some of america's poorest children are illiterate. nick joins me now live from the "times" to explain. so you go to jackson, kentucky, and people are running literacy programs there but tlrl parents who don't want their kids to learn to read. it just defies all logic and all tradition here in the united states of wanting our kids to have a better life. what's going on? >> well, it's heartbreaking because there is, in effect, an incentive for parents to try to gain the system and have their kids be diagnosed with an intellectual disability because then they can get payments each month until that child turns 18 under the ssi system. and so, you know, there's no doubt that ssi support is a lifeline to many parents with kids who truly are disabled. but also, according to people there, there's no doubt that there are a lot of fuzzier cases

where there's a real incentive to have your children lag behind because that's one basis for diagnosing this kind of disability. >> 1.2 million children enrolled in supplemental programs at a cost of billion a year. as you say, there are obviously kids who really need this kind of assistance, but is it possible, nick, to assess what part of it is working and what part of it is actually hurting kids. >> i don't have a sense of where that falls in. but what is clear is that now 8% of low-income children are receiving ssi disability and that two-thirds of them, upon reaching 18 then, automatically graduate into adult disability, in which is in many cases going to mean that they're never going to have a regular job, which is the best ticket out of poverty. so it seems to me that at the end of the day we are relying to fight poverty on a program that in some cases ends upper pet

chew waiting it. there are so many much better ways to fight poverty. >> tell us about the some of the things we are working. what works is jobs. it's education, it's early childhood intervention. i spent time with save the children, we tend to associate with africa but also does a great job in poor areas of the u.s. they have parental visitation programs. so they work with at risk parents, encourage them to read to their children. they bring them books. they encourage them to hug them, support them, to talk to them. they then have after school literacy programs and things like this. and you know, there are no silver bullets. nothing works perfectly. but we are getting a much better sense of what does work as these kind of early childhood programs. it's job training programs. it's -- i mean, marriage is a powerful antidote to fight

poverty even though evidence is mixed on whether programs are going to keep marriages intact or not. >> there's a lot there, many lines in this that got to me. but one of them is you wrote, of american families living in poverty today, 8 out of 10 have air conditioning and a majority have a washing machine and dryer. nearly all have microwave ovens. what they don't have is hope. so what do you do? how do you give someone who is living in an area that is ravaged by drug addiction, you write about that. you profile one teenage girl who you talk about having a tremendous intellectual mind and yet she was raped when she was young and got kicked out of school and ended up, you know, getting pregnant when she was very young. how do you give people hope in those circumstances? >> i think a lot of it is education. i mean, i write a lot about poverty abroad and the best escalator out of poverty, whether you're talking about tanzania or kentucky is education. and again, it doesn't work every

time but the other commonality is whether you're in tanzania or in kentucky the kids who most desperately need that education escalator don't get it. >> i know a lot of people don't see the comparison because those test scores i mentioned at the top and your column. the first thing i thought is how many kids are out there who could be great scientists or great mathematicians and aren't having that opportunity because of their life circumstances. it's a fantastic -- i love your columns always but this one really got to me. people can see it at nytimes.com. thanks so much for coming on the program. >> thanks, chris. >> see you soon. today's tweet of the day comes from u.n. ambassador susan rice. our children deserve a world that respects their differences and protects their freedoms. may we work fiercely to make it real. #humanrights.rrent phone bill? four sixteen seventy six a month! okay, come with me -- we're gonna save you money. with straight talk at walmart, you get unlimited talk, text and data for only $45 a month per phone. would we get the same coverage? same coverage on america's best networks.

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watch out on the roads and frosty goes got frown. let's go down to the wire. violinist in ukraine set a world record by playing four violins at the same time. ♪ he says he wants to make classical music more interesting to the public. its next goal, five violins at once. and update to a story we brought you last week. the dog is officially driving on his own. broadcast live on new zealand, tv, yesterday one of three rescue dogs who have been trained to drive cars. the trainer says he did it to show that shelter dogs are smart and trainable and cute. one cheerleading routine getting a lot of buzz online. 10-year-old christian has been performing with the tampa bay buccaneers cheerleaders, leading them in gangnam style dances this season. the videos have gone viral and so, of course, the cheerleaders

did their routine this morning with him on the "today" show. and talk about an armed robbery. a man caught on surveillance video stealing the arms of a maryland frosty the snowman. i know! caught on tape. and then the arms were promptly returned on the owner's doors p doorstep. who would do that, thomas robtsz? >> what would he use those arms for? does he have his own frosty that was armless somewhere? >> it's upsetting to me. i have to end my show now. >> very upset. but monte the dog, he was checking his mirrors and nk. really good. >> i heard he drives better than you. >> probably does. i haven't driven in a long time. thanks so much. coming up the agenda next hour, thousands of pro-union protesters are storming the state capital in lansing, michigan, to rally against the anti-union right to work though which could pass coming up any moment. look at the crowds swelling there. take you there live to michigan for the latest. signs of hope. are president obama and speaker

boehner about to give birth to a two-party fiscal cliff deal? how both sides are trying to meet in the sensible center. and history making newlyweds. robbie perry and paris prince are the first male couple to be celebrated four their wedding in "jet" magazine's famous love section. the men join me on their history making moment and breaking stereotypes. can your moisturizer do that? [ female announcer ] dermatologist recommended aveeno has an oat formula, now proven to build a moisture reserve, so skin can replenish itself. that's healthy skin for life. only from aveeno.

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